A war is brewing over alleged favouritism in the SABC’s commissioning procedures, writes Ferial Haffajee
Independent television producers believe that the SABC secretly gave a multi-million-rand contract for breakfast television to a favoured firm while pretending to be taking submissions from its rivals.
Questions are being asked about the role played in the deal by the SABC’s former chief executive, Zwelakhe Sisulu.
The contract was awarded to Urban Brew, a production house which is co- owned by New Africa Investments Limited (Nail) – the corporation Sisulu left the SABC to join as an executive director with responsibility for its media, entertainment and telecommunications interests.
The decision has angered many broadcasters inside and outside the SABC who charge that Urban Brew knew it had bagged the breakfast television contract long before it was officially announced on Friday, August 7.
Rival production houses are particularly incensed by the suspicion that the SABC invited them in for a second round of interviews, on Thursday, August 6, knowing they were a charade. Television companies bidding for breakfast television spent tens of thousands of rands making their “pitches” for the contract.
Urban Brew has won more than R40- million worth of work from the SABC in the past three years, far outstripping its rivals.
The SABC’s highly regarded programme director, Mandla Langa, has questioned the favoured status which companies like Urban Brew enjoy at the SABC.
The granting of the breakfast TV contract flies in the face of Langa’s efforts to overhaul commissioning procedures so that more producers get an opportunity to air their work. An SABC contract is coveted in a country where there is so little local television work.
There were a number of indications Urban Brew had advance knowledge that it was going to be given the contract. The company had already hired a producer when the award was announced.
Shooting for AM2DAY – the new-look breakfast programme which starts on October 1 – reportedly began last Saturday, the day after the contract was awarded.
Urban Brew is bringing R9-million in sponsorships to the programme. The brains behind Urban Brew is Danie Ferreira, who used to work with the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance – a South African government front in Namibia during the apartheid era.
Ferreira would not discuss his background this week and his partner, Barney Cohen, objected to the questions. “I don’t see the relevance,” said the visibly riled Cohen, a former nightclub owner and past editor of Drum and True Love magazines.
“As soon as Zwelakhe [Sisulu] announced the buy-out of Urban Brew, it answered many questions for us,” charged a member of the Black Filmmakers’ Forum.
“If you talk to any black producer, there’s bitterness. Every time you’re told doors are opening, they shut in your face.”
SABC representative Enoch Sithole said there was no conflict of interest in Sisulu’s company being granted the contract, which was negotiated while Sisulu was working half-time for the SABC and the other half for Nail.
“Urban Brew is an old, established company. I can leave the SABC today, form a company and tender for work tomorrow,” said Sithole.
He also insisted there was no problem with the number of concurrent contracts held by Urban Brew. Producers who complained they have not been allowed to have more than one SABC contract at a time had been “misinformed” by commissioning editors.
“You can’t make the decision on the basis of giving everybody work. It’s got to do with what is good-quality television for our audiences,” Sithole said.
Cohen and Ferreira were at pains to stress there was no hanky-panky or “favoured-nation status” for their company.
“We work within the SABC’s budgets,” said Cohen. Urban Brew was willing to accept commissions for less than other producers, did not draw high percentages as profit and “work bloody hard”, he said.
The politically connected businessman added: “Our programmes are finding favour with the market, and the SABC can rest assured that we will deliver at the budgets they set. Our only inside track at the SABC is that we knock on their doors and we keep knocking every day.”
Urban Brew is being dubbed by television insiders as the “Barney and Danie” show. Ferreira is said to be the wily ideas man, while Cohen is cast as the wheeler-dealer who is on social terms with SABC honchos. By this Wednesday they had already had mugs printed featuring the AM2DAY logo.
At Urban Brew’s hi-tech and colourful headquarters in Johannesburg it was all systems go this week, where glamorous stars and bright young things from Win ‘n Spin, Woza Weekend and Yo-TV strutted the corridors.